TV/Cable News

It took a pandemic to put a stop to a retransmission consent dispute that, by law, has blocked Cox Media Group stations from reaching DISH customers in 10 DMAs. The markets are those comprising what was Brian Brady's Northwest Broadcasting, now a part of Cox's “Terrier” assets.

Year after year, on the Monday following Mother's Day, hundreds of advertising executives, CMOs, media buyers and broadcast TV C-Suiters engaged in a three-day cavalcade of hype, braggadocio, previews and promotional puffery in what has become the annual Upfront Week. This year, broadcast media's upfronts are gone. But, it is due to the growing global COVID-19 pandemic.

A broadcast ministry is grabbing an ION Television presently operated by the newly constituted Cox Media Group -- a donation made possible by Apollo Global Management's investment in CMG and the acquisition of TV stations from Brian Brady.

As a big political advertiser leaves the fray and takes with him his massive advertising war chest, the summit of the TV Spot Ten was a competition of major insurance companies. You’ll recognize the names in the latest Media Monitors report.

Now that the Mike Bloomberg for President campaign has ended, GEICO has returned to its prior role as an irrepressible force in media advertising. For the week ending March 8, it proved once again, as the insurance giant topped the Spot Ten Cable report as measured by Media Monitors.

"The most sports for the least money." That's the brand promise given to consumers by fuboTV, a digitally delivered service that allows subscribers to watch live sports and TV without cable. More than 100 channels offering local sports, news and Cloud DVR can be had. Now, two big nationally distributed sports networks are in the mix.

With Ed Ansin's WSVN-7 a dominant English-language source for local news, The E.W. Scripps Co. hopes to soon slice away some of the massive reach -- and ad revenue. Now, viewers can receive a blend of headline news via a low-power TV station serving Miami-Dade County -- another sign that TV news in a heavily Spanish-speaking market still means big bucks.

Meredith’s NBC affiliate in Music City USA partnered with the American Red Cross and CMT to raise nearly $400,000 in an effort to help rebuild the Germantown and East Nashville areas affected by fierce tornadoes that tore through Nashville and surrounding areas in the early hours of March 3.

It's a good news/bad news announcement for sports fans: An agreement has been reached that will give YouTube TV consumers access to 19 regional sports nets that will soon be rebranded from FOX nomenclature. But, the Internet TV service is dropping two of the RSNs — as well as the Yankees/Nets' YES Network.

BIA has adjusted its local political ad forecast for this year from an earlier estimate of $6.6 billion this past fall. Media across the board are in for a nice slice of the action — and Mike Bloomberg's departure as a candidate may not result in any significant loss in election ad dollars for radio or TV.

Jeffrey Wlodarczak, the Principal and Entertainment/Interactive Subscription Services Analyst at Pivotal Research Group, likes what he sees at DISH Network. As such, he's just raised his rating on the DBS provider-turned-wireless services carrier upward, while Wlodarczak reiterated his year-end 2020 price target.

Did you know that one of the burgeoning podcast industry's most popular conferences starts Friday in Orlando? The 2020 Podfest Multimedia Expo is a major event, and Podfest Chief Creative Officer Chris Krimitsos has all of the details from the Sunshine State about an event that radio broadcasting companies may wish to put on their radar -- if they haven't done so already.

Retransmission consent revenue is still a fiery topic for members of ACA Connects, which represents small and independently owned MVPDs. For broadcast TV companies, it is a growing profit generator that can help combat declines in spot advertising revenue. What's the retrans revenue outlook for the E.W. Scripps Co.? One analyst has an answer.

Not concerned about the threat of the coronavirus-fueled COVID-19 sickness on your business? Perhaps a close look at a just-released investor note on Comcast Corp. from Pivotal Research Group Principal and Entertainment/Interactive Subscription Services Analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak is worthy of your attention. Wlodarczak reduced his 2020 NBC expectation, and for a number of reasons.

Wall Street analyst Michael Nathanson recently reviewed cord-cutting trends and its impact on MVPDs and now senses "another crucial consumer trend" — the shift in linear consumption from non-live to live content. As Nathanson observes, this shift has been wreaking havoc on the underlying economics of networks for some time now.